 South Africa's supermarkets dominate the region. In South Africa, just like anywhere else in the world, supermarket shelves are stocked with locally produced goods and imported goods. But when it comes to those imported goods, it is often cheaper to fly and ship goods from South America than it is to drive goods from neighbouring countries in Southern Africa. Even when the goods are made cheaply in the region. Why is this? Researchers from the Centre for Competition, Regulation and Economic Development in collaboration with the United Nations University World Institute for Development Economics Research, U&U Wider, are trying to find an answer to this question. This is part of a U&U Wider project across countries in Southern Africa to identify key areas for win-win policies in the region. Over 70% and some estimates are even higher of goods transported within Africa and in Southern Africa are transported by road transport. Supermarkets matter for South Africa and Southern Africa from the perspective of shoppers, U&I, but importantly from the perspective of suppliers and developing capabilities of suppliers in the region. Supermarkets offer a pathway through which suppliers can supply their products not just in their local respective countries but throughout the Southern African region. Researchers spoke to dozens of transporters, tracking associations and agents operating within the Southern African region. This work pointed them to one of the central problems, border controls. My name is Chris Ruit from Wirtan Ruit, a market agent. I've been on Johannesburg Fresh Produce Market for over 40 years. We sell for producers on a commission basis. Mostly vegetables, fruit, potatoes and onions. Unfortunately at this stage very little of our produce do live in South Africa. The problems is the logistics. Transport and border control is a problem. Getting the produce in a fresh state into those countries quick enough. My name is Wayne Smith. I'm from International Runner Services. I opened my business officially in 1995 so 23 years we've been in business trading as transporters in the region. Covering Zimbabwe, Botswana, Mozambique, Zambia. We've done them all. Delays at the border are currently regulations, the documentation process. There's no uniform agreed principles in dealing with any border posts. It's a day-to-day Russian relief basically where we're sitting and we're going, okay, we need to get through this border but the procedure at the border is flawed. We can spend anything from two to eight days on the current routes that we are applying. The delays are there. My name is Kainos Maranda and I've been driving starting from 1993. Driving to Zambia, Mozambique, Malawi, Namibia, Botswana. By the border I wait for a long time. You delay while you're on the queue to cross because there'll be a lot of tracks. It's frustrating because one of the borders there is notice in a place where you can hide for the sun. Most of the borders, they are very, very hot. Transpor cost between, say, for instance, Zambia and South Africa are around double what they should be compared to benchmarks around the world. The truck standing idle at the border gates between South Africa and Zimbabwe costs around $400 to $600 per day standing still. This translates then to around $20 per tonne that is then loaded onto the price of transporting those goods. You remove that $20 per day and you have goods that are suddenly far more competitive when sold across borders within the South African region. The delays that we are having at the border, the cost of it is between $200 and $300 a day but the real cost that we can't recover is the $400 to $500 that we could have made out of that vehicle on the current routes that we are applying. One key proposition that emerged from the research is the idea of a one-stop border post across the South African region. Currently we have two countries with two border posts. Double work, duplication of immigration, duplication of customs functionality. We've got agricultural duplications on both ports where it could be controlled and contained in one border post. They should have made a one-stop border from SSI to just go to the same side and close. But this is not happening. You spend a day at SSI, then Zimbabwe inside again there is another day for new things but the same documents that has been done from this side to the other side again. The research also points to another reason why trade in Southern Africa is less than it could be. Many of the trucks that leave South Africa hitting North come back empty. We care about growth in South Africa and in the Southern African region but at the moment it's too much of a one-way street. What we see is value-added products leaving South Africa to get onto supermarket shelves in Zambia. Where the opportunity lies is to get those trucks to come back carrying output that's been produced in the partner countries. For South African supermarkets to source products from the region, from suppliers in the region, put them on trucks and sell them in South African supermarket shelves. Most of our loads are coming from South Africa. So in Zimbabwe we don't have much loads. Maybe it will be some boxes, maybe 5-10 boxes. Not that much. 99% of our loads return empty. If we came back with cargo from the regions that we've just delivered to, we would be able to reduce our costs between 20 and 30% of our current value going to the destination. That will be the exciting thing for us. There are opportunities here to load goods onto those trucks and bring them back into the South African market which would have the effect, importantly, of reducing the cost paid by your South African exporter as well as enabling opportunities to access the largest regional market for your exporters in the different countries. Which is really the end goal in terms of achieving greater regional integration but also industrial development. If trucks come back from the Southern African region full to South Africa, we move from being a one-way street to a two-way street where growth benefits both South Africa and the Southern African region.